Alternative Culture: Joshua Harris and Marty Sampson

Gracia Hosokawa, a Japanese Christian. She did not apostatise despite intense persecution in Japan. 

Recently, two leading Christians had expressed doubts in their faith. One is Joshua Harris, author of the Christian book I Kissed Dating Goodbye and the other is Marty Simpson, the lead singer of Hillsong (a Christian Worship band).

Both men had expressed doubts in their faith, and felt that there were hard questions that Christianity could not satisfy. In this post I will writing about apostasy. I do not know neither Harris nor Simpson, so if you want to hear opinions on them, please go to another site.

What I want to address is some learning points about apostasy (leaving the faith).

Lesson 1:
Apostasy happens and is not as uncommon as we think

Even in the early church, apostasy existed. In 2 Timothy 4:10, Paul the apostle writes.

"for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica."

Even though Demas had worked with someone as faithful and dedicated as Paul (Demas was mentioned in Paul's other letters), he left the faith. Thus we should not be surprised that even hardworking church workers may renounced their faith.

Lesson 2:
Christians need to move beyond "spiritual milk"

In 1 Cor 3:2, Paul writes,

"I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready."

The meaning is clear -- followers of Christ cannot always stay in the state of an immature faith. In fact, one of my Indonesian students pointed out that many Christians around her are simply satisfied with surface catechisms, rather than dig down deep. Such unexplored territory and unwrestled questions led to Simpson losing his faith. As he stated on his Instagram,

"This is a soapbox moment so here I go … How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all ‘coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it. Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet—they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people. But it’s not for me."

Conclusion
This is not some new crisis, but a lesson for us to guard our faith and to continually explore uncomfortable questions. Only then may we find our God is truth.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” -- John *:31-32